Elkhart General Hospital opens $83 million surgery center expansion

A new surgery suite, post-anesthesia care unit and a helicopter pad are among the features of an $83 million surgery center expansion at Elkhart General Hospital in Indiana will open to patients on Monday.

The project was paid for partially through the hospital's affiliation with Beacon Health System, and partially from bonds. The system said $40 million came from cash reserves and $43 million as part of Beacon Health System's tax exempt bond issuance in 2013, according to Beacon Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Costello.

The 10 surgery and endoscopy suites will be double the size of those currently in use, with higher ceilings that will allow surgical equipment to hover over the medical team on movable booms. Expansive surgical suites will offer amenities for families waiting on patients in surgery, and a hybrid operating room will combine imaging services and surgical procedures in the same space.

Pam Goddard-Dunfee, a nurse and executive director of surgical and cardiovascular services at Elkhart, is thrilled to be moving into the new space.

"We've been touring it for months," she said. "It's spacious, it's bright, we've got lots of windows, and we're coming from a 40-year-old operating room where there were no windows. It's wonderful."

Goddard-Dunfee expects the new facilities will benefit both clinicians and the patients.

"We're putting in a tracking system -- that ought to make a huge difference," she said. "Right now if we need to know a patient has arrived or needs to be seen by a physician … we have to call over to our re-op area. Now the staff will be able to look up everything right away. That eliminates calls, and they can head right over, and the day can begin. Because of the technology, it will affect our workflow and be much more efficient."

Families of patients should also have a better hospital experience, said Kreg Gruber, chief operating officer of Beacon Health System.

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"The old space was very tight, dark, and didn't have the privacy you would like to have had. In the new space, there are a lot of windows, better spaces for privacy for families, and better access to the check-in window, so the whole flow and experience has been improved. … The experience will be much better overall for people."

The planning stage took about five years, according to Gruber, but a new surgery space had been envisioned long before that. For years, financing such a project wasn't feasible. What changed was Elkhart's affiliation with Beacon, which also oversees the nearby Memorial Hospital. That gave Elkhart the necessary capital to finally consider implementing the overhaul -- the largest expansion in the hospital's history.

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Further improvements include a central sterile processing area, with state-of-the-art decontaminators and sterilizers, and a surgery prep/hold area with 23 beds/chair bays.

Goddard-Dunfee estimated the total project, from stem to stern, will encompass about 165,000 square feet of space.

"The staff is very excited, and it is a beautiful area," she said.

Twitter: @JELagasse